Pedestrians crossing on California St. in San Francisco Calif., on Tuesday, March 13, 2012.

Photo: Liz Hafalia, The Chronicle

Pedestrians crossing on California St. in San Francisco Calif., on...

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Pedestrians currently cross four lanes of traffic on Webster Street then cross Geary Blvd. via a pedestrian overpass to reach Peace Plaza in Japantown, San Francisco, Calif. on Friday, May 1, 2009. The city plans to reduce the lanes on Webster Street and make access from Geary Blvd. safer at this intersection as part of a Japantown revitalization project.
Photo by Kat Wade / Special to the Chronicle

Photo: Kat Wade

Pedestrians currently cross four lanes of traffic on Webster Street...

If today's Chronicle headline read "7,250 injuries, 250-300 dead in San Francisco," readers would look up in shock. Was it an earthquake? Had jumbo jets crashed into AT&T Park during a playoff game? "Something must be done," elected officials would cry, then scurry to head off a flood of calls from angry voters.

Alas, if only this were the reaction. Worse, the headline is true.

The injury and death-toll numbers are the unenviable record San Francisco has piled up over the past decade through injuries and deaths of pedestrians.

Research shows that up to 40 percent of those injured and killed were seniors, who represent only 11 to 12 percent of the population but amount to an estimated 300 or more of those struck down each year. This week, for the second time in less than nine months, a senior pedestrian in a crosswalk in the city was struck by a cyclist and sent to the hospital.

The price to these seniors, and the public, is enormous. A UCSF study found that emergency room trips averaged $6,900 for pedestrian injuries, and hospitalizations averaged $74,900. The annual cost was roughly $19 million in our tax money. There is also the human cost to those injured - just over a third of seniors go home from the hospital, almost 1 in 5 die, and the remaining 45 percent go to a nursing home or rehab center.

Negligent drivers and cyclists are not the whole problem. The public environment in San Francisco is designed to move traffic, at as high a speed as practical, with only secondary regard for those residents, often elderly, who must scurry through "Death Race 2012" just outside their doors.

Our position in pedestrian advocacy groups is that one death is too many; all injuries and deaths are avoidable - preventable. There needs be a strong new will from the city to address the problem in ways that work right now. Many good, dedicated people serve in pedestrian programs in the city, but an honest appraisal has to say that what they have been doing is not working and that people die because of it.

The solutions are:

-- Enforcement of laws designed to protect pedestrians.

-- Engineering on our streets. The redesign of 19th Avenue showed this two years ago.

Application of known techniques is neither rocket science nor prohibitively expensive, at a cost well under the $19 million spent each year caring for victims.

Government officials need a new attitude - a regular toll of deaths and injuries, especially frail seniors, must stop being treated as business as usual. San Francisco police need to cite all drivers when people are hit, not characterize some injuries as a "regrettable accident." The district attorney needs to make prosecution a priority, not a political calculation. Who will respect a D.A. who lets someone run a red light and kill a pedestrian and let him off with a few hours of community service because the perpetrator was late for work?

Computerized modeling can now map where pedestrian injuries are most likely. A sensible city policy would be to focus attention on those areas immediately. Another easy fix is crossing times at intersections - standards based on able-bodied graduate students somehow don't translate into planning for seniors with walkers. Set crossing speeds low enough to accommodate slower pedestrians - at the cost of few seconds delay for drivers, many fewer seniors might be injured or killed.

Slower vehicle speeds reduce both the number and severity of accidents. State law permits creation of 25-mph "senior zones," and it's time the city acted near housing, health care sites and senior centers. The ultimate aim should be for the city to protect everyone who walks and take the target off the backs of those who can no longer sprint across the street.

The biggest problem pedestrian advocates face is a public that is not informed and does not speak out. For an eye-opening experience, take at look at the website www.tims.berkeley.edu and map pedestrian injuries in your own neighborhood, then call the mayor, the district attorney and the Board of Supervisors and say, "Enough is enough."